


The Good Times Are Killing Me

by Iridogorgia



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Dubious Consent, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Not a Love Story, Savage Raoul Silva, Severine Lives, Severine-centric, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:14:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23338978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iridogorgia/pseuds/Iridogorgia
Summary: Late nights with warm, warm whiskey, I guess the good times they were all just killing me.Sévérine before, during, and how she fell through the cracks to after.
Relationships: James Bond/Severine, Patrice/Severine (James Bond), Severine/Raoul Silva | Tiago Rodriguez
Kudos: 3





	1. twenty more "one mores"

**Author's Note:**

> In my mind, Sévérine has had a very hard life and Raoul was not kind to her. I don't shy away from that, and I don't characterize her as a whimpering maiden. There's non-con at the beginning, but that's the only place. It morphs into something else later as she rears up to try and match Silva's ferocity. In short, a bunch of bad shit happens to her and she only grows stronger because of it.
> 
> If anything like the warnings squick you, please don't read further!
> 
> Also note that this is the only Bond movie I've seen, almost entirely because of sweet Javier Bardem, so if I got any lore wrong please forgive!

When he fucked her somewhere in the middle of their time together, he snarled. His face twisted, eyes heavy, and he looked at her like he wanted to eat her alive.

She would touch him, but the thought frightened her. Like touching a tiger. Like touching a beast that would turn and rip your arm off. So when he fucked her, she put her arms over her head to brace herself against the wall or against the headboard or against the arm of the couch he had her pinned against. His hair looked soft, but his teeth were sharp.

Selective freedom.

She had clients, but none that she was obligated to sleep with. Only ones that must die, one way or another. Lured back to the crumbling island to get a bullet in the brain, or moved to an exact spot at an exact time to get a shot in the spine, or at the end of her own quick fingers and whatever wicked weapon she had on hand. 

The only person she was obligated to sleep with was him. Their relationship was about the imbalance of power, about his command against her will, her obligation to his generosity. Her obedience to his ruthless dominance. Her open legs to his turgid, unrelenting cock.

So when he fucked her, she kept her hands to herself and did not look away.

It is better, she thought, to fuck a devil she knew than three hundred that she did not.

* * *

She was sixteen, on the cusp of seventeen, when he came and plucked her from the brothel in Macau. He walked into the disgusting, decadent parlor, shot the man who was trying to shove his hands between her thighs, and put his coat around her. The madame came to scold him and he split open her skull like it was so easy. Like it was a common thing to do. He claimed her and took her away. Later, she would learn this man’s name and the fact that once he set his sights on someone, they never got away for long.

Then, with the eyes of someone who still believed in knights, he was a god. Magnificent. A little old fashioned in his manners, but it was charming.

He told her about Hashima, how his prowess had failed the systems and caused an evacuation. She nearly swooned, a simple idiot with fantasies of a private island, with sunshine, pristine white sand and coconut trees. She’d swallow her disappointment poorly, the first time she set eyes on it. He pretended not to notice, but like he noticed every little thing, he would file it away to use against her later.

The cruise back to his island, he was a complete gentleman. He never touched her, didn’t look when she undressed. He gave her the bed and slept on the uncomfortable little maritime sofa. She would inquire as to why he’d chosen her, over breakfast in the morning, and he would just smile and eat his toast. She wasn’t stupid, she knew there were hundreds of young, slim women with dark hair and dark eyes in that house alone, and she’d never seen him before. Her appearance, attractive as it was, could not have been what caught his attention. He had a thin veneer of cruelty under each expression, and she started to think she could understand.

When she asked a second time, over lunch, he only smiled in a way that would never reach his eyes and tell her to wait.

She didn’t ask a third.

On the island, there was another girl. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Pale, pale skin, easily bruised and splotched with blood. Curiously, she wasn’t frightened. It may have been the head trauma.

“She betrayed me,” he whispered in Sévérine’s ear, eyes heavy-lidded and dark with arousal. He put a gun in her hand, “Avenge me, and take her place at my side.”

Without a second thought, she shot the girl in the forehead.

‘I’m sorry,’ she thought uselessly, only to herself, ‘but if it is not you, it is me. And it will never, ever be me.’

Of course, that was an inevitable lie.

* * *

The first time he fucked her was the morning of her twentieth birthday. She’d been at his ‘side’ for three years, technically, but in the literal sense he was gone more than he was on the island, and she hadn’t seen him for two months. In the time she’d been with him and his organization, she’d killed over three hundred people, been partnered with a vicious man named Marcus and then a better one named Patrice. She’d become an assassin, an actress, seeped in the world of crime, and she hadn’t slept with a single man.

It wasn’t an order, it was a choice.

A liberating, beautiful choice.

She’d kissed Patrice, dozens of times, mostly in the frenzy after a successful kill. He loved the violence, loved the way she talked about it, the way she looked when she held a knife, and she always had a weapon to point at him when his hand drifted up her leg. He loved that too, but more importantly, he respected it. She was young, strong, and for the first time, she felt powerful.

So when Raoul Silva stood, shrugging off a loose robe, in the doorway of her apartment, she frowned and closed her legs. She wore nothing to bed, not with silk sheets, and she drew the top sheet up around her chest. “What are you doing here?” He draped the robe over the back of a chair and closed the door behind him.

“You can drop that now,” he said in a friendly, jovial way that was absolutely not a request.

He was half-hard, and she couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t a natural blond.

“No.”

“You don’t get to say that to me.” His voice was dark, seductive, cutting. He came closer, an inevitable tide. She took the opportunity to size him up, fear sliding up her spine.

His body was the body of a man who survived. It was strong, broad, fit with muscle and fat and acres of hair-dusted skin. There were so many scars she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask what the most painful one had been. There was one, a curving, sickle-shaped seam of tissue on his upper thigh that went nearly to his balls that seemed a very likely candidate to win. But its competition was sprayed across his skin like a treasure map.

His eyes narrowed, pupils shrunk to pinpricks, and she dropped the sheet.

He came to her silently, still smiling, and pushed her onto her back.

She looked at him distrustfully, but did not resist.

“I have waited,” he said pleasantly, nudging her thighs apart with one of his own, “For this moment. For this time, for you to grow into your own and develop some fight.”

She tried to snap her legs shut, and he casually slapped her across the face.

When she turned her head to look at him again, he waited to catch her eye before shoving her thighs apart with his hands at the groin, the joints and tendons twinging in discomfort, and he pushed himself inside of her with one forceful thrust.

She wasn’t ready, and she shrieked as he pushed past the initial ring of muscle with the broad head of his cock, paving the way for the rest of his thick organ to follow. He released her hips to loom over her on one elbow, a large hand clasped around her throat. He pushed himself all the way in and then further, forcing his pelvis flat against hers and her legs to spread even wider.

Unbidden, she felt her eyes well up with tears. He pressed himself into her harder, his grip tightening on her throat, and his eyes started to dilate.

He pulled out and pressed back in, some of her internal wetness spreading and easing the burn of it. Without him inside of her, she felt cavernous. Empty. She hated it.

He didn’t say anything, just kept his eyes on her face and his hand against her windpipe, pushing in and out of her in a steady rhythm. She gasped and started to clasp her legs around his waist, trying to angle him in a way that would bring her a little pleasure.

She’d been a whore for five years before he found her. She knew how to bear it.

She knew this was sex, but it wasn’t about emotion. This was power. This was establishing that he could do what he wanted with her body. She was free, but only as free as he let her be.

He rewarded her with a slight shift of his hips and a sloppy kiss. He licked the inside of her mouth, wet and he tasted strange, like oranges and burned bones, but she would take what she could get and slowly, slowly she put her arms around him. He released her throat and shoved both of her arms off in one strong movement, “Don’t _touch_ me,” he snarled and his voice sounded deeper, different, demonic.

He pulled himself out, grabbed her by her little waist and flipped her around. He shoved her head into the pillows and mounted her again, fucking her with an intensity she’d never had before. He branded her, hands gripping her ass until she bruised and she found herself not very surprised that it made her wet.

His hands slid from her hips to just under her ribcage, and his pace settled until it was slow and deep, and he laughed darkly, “You _like_ that.”

She didn’t say anything, just turned and looked at him with a defiant, proud face.

That triggered something in him, made something snap, and he held her in place while he snapped his hips two, three times and then he buried himself in her, back arching, and he came with one long, low moan that reverberated around the room.

When he pulled out of her she hissed, and he gave her an unhinged look. She felt his come roll down her thigh, and he watched it with the tip of his tongue pressed against his lower lip.

“I have a job for you,” and he was barely out of breath, his pale skin only lightly flushed with exertion. He stood before her with a softening cock and a trembling belly.

She turned onto her back and crossed her arms over her chest and her legs at the ankle. “What is it?” She asked coldly, professionally, and he smiled.

* * *

He wouldn’t fuck her often, maybe a handful of times a year, but their couplings were always brutal, always controlling, and always at his demand. He had her a number of ways, in a number of places. He always knew where she was, and as she settled into a rhythm of cloak-and-dagger with Patrice, he took to showing up on her doorstep more often.

Sometimes he came with gifts. Sometimes he came with bodies. More often than not, they were one and the same.

The years lumbered on. She went to more countries, almost died twice, and killed anyone she caught soliciting an underage girl.

Patrice always kept watch, and she’d even taken to bedding him when they had the time. He preferred her violence to her sweetness, but he grew to accept both in equal measure. They were a pair, her and Patrice. She knew it was a matter of time before Silva took it away. The knowledge made her hold him all the closer.

It started innocuously, “I need a hard drive from this location, this computer, at this time.”

He coached her and Patrice on how to remove it, bringing a stack of identical laptops and infinite patience. Through every step, Patrice was able to perform flawlessly. For a man who killed for a living, he had a delicate touch and an innate sense of how to pop mechanical bits apart. She managed to mangle every step. Her nails were too long, the wires too confusing, and her hand always slipped with the screwdriver. Normally, she would be the cloak, the friendly exterior that would draw the target to the right spot for the dagger, Patrice, to slice through them.

Now, Silva was looking at her with something like contempt.

“Patrice, you will retrieve the drive. Sévérine, you will play reinforcement.” His tone was cold, and he left without looking at her again.

It felt like the beginning of the end. 


	2. oh it does not relent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we go!

It went well, as well as it could when unexpected agents got involved.

She’d sliced the throat of one, leaving him to bleed out on the cold Turkish tile of the bathroom, and fatally stabbed another while Patrice frantically worked to dislodge the drive without damaging it. It had gone smoother with Silva looking over his shoulder, knowing he would be there to tell him when he was making a mistake. Sévérine had done what she could to buy him time, and he freed it just as they heard quiet footsteps in the hallway. The job was messy and there wasn’t time to fix the back of it as they wanted, to keep whoever was on the other side of the door from noticing that was what they’d taken, so Patrice put the drive in his pocket and silently jerked his head toward the door.

They ran together, Sévérine in her practical lace-ups and Patrice in his Italian leather. They heard the man talking, English like the rest of them, and his dismay over the one that Sévérine had stabbed but not finished. They quietly fled down the stairs and she went into the brightly colored cafe across the street, ordered a pink drink with jelly in it and perched prettily on a stool as Patrice got into their borrowed Audi and started to drive.

A handsome man, blonde and pale with arresting blue eyes, tidy in a light suit came out and got into a gray vehicle that pulled up alongside him. He and whoever the driver was followed Patrice around a corner.

Sévérine finished her drink and quietly got on the next train going south.

She wouldn’t see Patrice again for three days.

By the time he stumbled into their safe house four towns over, his bruises would look worse than they were and he would be so glad to see her that he would kiss her before he said hello. He told her, in hushed tones, about the agent, the chase, about the sniper who meant to shoot him but got the other man instead, and she ran her long, long fingernails over his scalp while he recounted the tale.

“You’re tired,” she whispered, and he didn’t deny it. “Sleep, I’ll find out what our next move is.”

Their cars had been totaled, their motorcycles too. She wondered, for a moment, as Patrice’s eyes closed if Silva meant to abandon them here. If he would be generous enough to let them _go_ , now that his objective had been achieved. She imagined her and Patrice, making a new life for themselves, free of petty crime and danger, the earth under their hands and the sun on their faces. Somewhere in the country, maybe in France. Growing vegetables. Tending a life.

Then her phone rang, and she let that dream die.

* * *

Two more unrelated missions, the memory of the man wrongfully shot by the sniper fading to the backs of their minds, and then there was an easy cloak-and-dagger in Shanghai. She hadn’t seen Silva in weeks, but when he came to her he was in a jovial mood. He’d even kissed her full on the mouth before demanding she shed her clothes.

“This man,” Silva tossed the picture down on the bed, manila folder still held open in his hands. He was otherwise naked, having just finished spending himself into her, and she picked up the picture delicately with two long nails.

His eyes went to her belly, a new pink scar sliding up over her kidneys and up to nearly her lungs. A mission a month ago that had almost freed her from this mortal life. He’d licked that scar and, for once, made her moan with his adoration of it. Just the sight of it, again, made him twitch, and she raised an eyebrow.

“Ready again?” She studied the man in the photo, memorized his bland features, and slid her eyes over to him through dark lashes.

There were other scars - white ones, old and faded and from life before being at the side of Raoul Silva. He didn’t like those as much as he did the ones that she gathered from her time in the field. He still traced them, from time to time, but he only kissed the new ones. Even then, he used his teeth. Biting. Vicious. Dominate.

He hummed and demured, “How is it healing?” His eyes flicked to her belly and she thoughtfully traced the new skin with one nail.

“It’s coming along well,” she murmured, “The doctor you found thinks there will be no lasting damage, save the scar.”

He clucked his tongue thoughtfully and pulled out a single sheet of paper, a dossier with objectives, dates, plans. He handed it to her, sitting beside her on the plush chaise as he did so. Not a bed. Never a bed, not since their first time.

She took it and started reading. An assassination, she would be the cloak luring the man in with expensive artwork, Patrice would be the dagger in the building opposite, his long sniper rifle steady at his side. The style of the mission was familiar enough that she was already planning her clothing and hair, minor details, trusting the rest to fall into place. She jumped when, a minute later, his hand landed heavy above her knee.

Her eyes flicked up to his over the single sheet and he held her gaze as his hand slid up her thigh, higher, and her legs spread ever so slightly automatically. He delved those thick, clever fingers into her, finding her slick with himself, and he used that wetness to masturbate her. She gasped slightly and tensed, the pleasure coming unbidden, her body unused to such a gentle touch.

Her eyes slid closed and she allowed herself to cautiously enjoy the sensation of him touching her. He made quick circles over her sex, varying the speed and the pressure, and before she knew it she was quickly cresting a peak that he’d never bothered to bring to her before.

Raoul was the most constant star in her sky, but rather than a distant pinprick of light, he was more like a meteor shower that was guaranteed to collide with her in violent, earth-shattering ways.

He leaned over her now, his expression intense, and she fought to keep her hands on the paper. After all these years, it was still so easy for her to try and reach out for that peroxide-yellow hair. He pressed himself closer and grabbed the edge of the dossier with his teeth, gently pulling it out of her lax fingers and dropping it over the edge of the chaise.

“The man who fought Patrice for the drive,” he murmured, his dark eyes intense on hers, and she found herself instantly on guard. “Did you know that I knew him?”

His hands moved rougher now, more pain than pleasure, but Sévérine had a lifetime to lean into the special kind of orgasm that could unintentionally bring. She whimpered now, and he snarled at her. He yanked her down from her sitting position, between his opened legs, and he shoved himself against her. Not quite hard enough, not yet, but his energy was rapidly shifting in a way she’d never seen.

“I knew him, but he never knew me. We never knew the ones before us, _she_ never let us, but I’ll show her what a _good boy_ I’ve grown up to be,” he wasn’t making sense, but his eyes were looking past her now, and she felt the first tendrils of fear curl into her gut. He was losing his _mind_. He reached down and smashed his mouth against hers in an angry kiss, and she considered pushing him away.

Considered the act, considered the consequences, and curled her fingers in on themselves to stop them from moving.

He gentled his actions, nipping her lip lightly, before he pulled himself back and wiped his fingers casually against her leg. The thought of orgasm was so far away that she didn’t mind at all. Patrice, however, would. He had begun to hate Silva for his casual ownership of her, for the way she couldn’t feel anything at all after he came by, and he would hate the smear of her against her own skin in the shape of his hand. Silva knew, she knew he did, and he didn’t care.

There was one more photo in the dossier, the back of the glossy paper shining slightly in the dim overhead lighting. He reached down and grabbed it, sliding it out of the manila folder with a movement that reminded Sévérine of someone handling a holy relic. His pupils were blown wide, and he turned those wild eyes on her as he flipped the paper around.

“I’ve seen him,” she blurted automatically, studying the photo. Craggy features, sharp eyes, pale hair. It was the same man who’d come out of the building in whatever little country that had been, so long ago, and gotten into the gray car and almost killed Patrice.

He raised one eyebrow, as if he hadn’t expected that, and held the paper still.

“From before,” she explained, not looking at him. “He followed Patrice, and I didn’t. I went back to the safe house. Patrice came later and said that man had been shot by one of his own people.”

Silva tilted his head to the side, a wave of blonde falling across his features, and studied her. She couldn’t predict what he would do next, and her hands started to shake with nerves.

“He’s going to show up again,” Silva said slowly, “soon. He’s being evaluated to follow Patrice to Shanghai, I’ve been making the pair of you quite visible. He’ll fail, but they’ll send him anyway. _She’ll_ send him anyway, she only stops playing with her toys when they’re completely broken.” His grip was starting to wrinkle the edges of the picture, and he forced himself to relax.

Sévérine shut her mouth and pulled herself up slowly.

“As much as I would _love_ to greet him myself,” Silva closed his eyes and he caressed the edges of the photo, “You are a much more likely lure. Everything has been set up to neatly collide in a carefully curated orchestra of chaos. At the end of it, he will meet you at Macau and you will feed him some sad story about wanting to be free, true as I know it is. I won’t see you again until you bring him back here, presumably to kill me.” He’d opened his eyes just a slit, just enough, and studied her expression.

“Are you- Do I have to sleep with him?” The novelty of sleeping with two men, one that she chose and one that she did not, had soured her for seducing any of their marks. She’d done the sultry look and faded around a corner, sure, but only to stab them in the oppressive dark of an unlit alleyway. She could _seduce_ but she would not _fornicate._ He smiled at her and she frowned.

She and Patrice had considered, in hushed tones and only where there were no microphones, leaving. Wait for a job somewhere remote where anything could happen, throw their technology into a river and start somewhere new together. She wondered if Silva knew, or if he merely suspected, and if he was going to neatly kill three birds with one tidy little snare.

Sévérine, Patrice, and the man in the photograph.

“You’ll do what you need to do.”

Something pinged in his pants, folded neatly on an end table, and he set the picture down by her feet. He checked his phone, eyes running over whatever the message was, and the corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. His mouth formed a word, ‘Boom’, and Sévérine frowned deeply.

“I don’t _do_ that anymore. I’m not a whore. Not-”

“You’re whatever I need you to be,” he cut in, annoyed. He started to slowly slide his pants back on. “You’re whatever I _tell_ you to be.” His eyes fell to the junction of her thighs, the patch of dark curls that covered her sex and he raised an eyebrow.

Sévérine scowled and grabbed her white cotton sundress. Arguing with him would get her nowhere. She yanked it over her head and swung herself off the chaise.

“You leave at the end of the week,” his raised voice followed her out into the hallway.

* * *

Patrice was not an affectionate man.

He was a trained killer, an assassin, her partner in crime.

They couldn’t sleep in the same bed, if she touched him when he was asleep his instincts took over. He pulled a knife on her once and tried to strangle her a second time. Now, they slept in cots next to each other when they got tired enough. He always put her in a corner, away from windows and doors, and slept between her and potential danger. He’d saved her life more than once because of his paranoia.

His expressions of love came differently. Protection, teaching her how to defend herself, trying to get her to wear sensible shoes and have shorter fingernails. Standing at the door when she showered after Silva paid her a visit.

Once she was clean and wrapped in a warm robe, her wet hair stringy around her shoulders, Sévérine sat close enough to Patrice for their thighs to touch. He had a tray on the table in front of him and was meticulously cleaning his rifle. She was studying the dossier and the photographs.

“Why is this person driving him like this?” She was staring at the man they’d seen before, the one that had almost killed him. She thought, suddenly, of having a cigarette, but Patrice had helped her quit two years ago. It made her smell, he’d said, and in turn, it made him smell. For the same reason, she used much less perfume.

Patrice sighed and continued polishing a long black cylinder. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to. Nobody asks, but everyone talks. There’s a rumor he used to be in MI6.” At her confused look, he elaborated, “The British Secret Service. Very secret. What they did, or what happened between him and them… it left him… like he is now.”

She looked longer at the man in the photo and recognized a similar sort of weariness on his face, the same breed that came over Silva’s profile from time to time. A similar hardness, but not as much visible cruelty. Not the same sharpness. “I didn’t know,” she admitted after several minutes.

He sighed and set his cloth down. “You aren’t supposed to,” he said it with a thick regret and pulled her papers away to give her a rare kiss. Tender as he’d ever done, and when he lowered her down on her soft bed, she was entirely willing.


	3. shortsighted false excitement

She left before he did, establishing her cover as a European broker of high-end modern art. Exclusive, expensive, elusive. You didn’t contact Madam Seurat, of no relation to the famous artist, she contacted you. A few bribes, a few forged receipts, all handled neatly via Silva ten thousand miles away, and she had quite the believable backstory.

Sévérine knew nothing about their mark beyond his taste in art and his spot on Silva’s list. She knew he’d asked around about her and gotten exactly the words she needed him to hear.

Really, it was borderline boring.

She’d spent her week and a half in Shanghai shopping and breezing from gallery to gallery, picking up appropriate paintings and prints. She had herself massaged, masqued, primped and polished in preparation for the man with the craggy features. Really, she should have been relaxed. It was a simple, fool-proof operation. She and Patrice and done this dance a dozen times over, and it should have been simple.

What was making her jitter was the very real possibility that Patrice was meant to die tonight. His plane was arriving at 9pm, and the assassination would happen within the hour afterward. Patrice was talented but not indispensable. If the man that was going to follow him was on the same level of prowess as Silva in his prime…

No. The job would be fine, then she and Patrice would take the poker chip concealed in his sleek leather case to Macau and they’d finish it. There was no other acceptable outcome, she wouldn’t voice it.

Sévérine grabbed her slinky black dress from the apartment closet and went to shower.

* * *

Her watch was a lovely, expensive piece. The strap was black leather, the face matte black titanium and studded with diamonds. It had no brand because it was custom-made by Silva and a Swiss watchmaker he’d kidnapped a few months ago. The body was very slim for a watch, but it held very sophisticated technology, a tiny supercomputer. It had GPS and a host of other delicate technological parts to it that were designed by Silva himself. He wouldn’t tell her everything it could do, but she knew that at least one part of the programming allowed him to take over all nearby security cameras remotely, just by having her watch broadcast a signal.

There was a discreet communication system set by a very subtle vibration.

Her mark was arriving now, his black car pulling smoothly up to the curb. She smiled at him and his assistant, standing tall in her impossible heels. She hoped, prayed, that Patrice would scold her for them afterward.

‘How will you run,’ he would demand, pulling the shoe off and inspecting her arches, ‘What if something were to go wrong and you needed to get away?’

She fought back a smile. Her wrist gave two long vibrations and one short. Patrice was taking care of security. She greeted her mark on autopilot, slipping into the mask of art aficionado easily. She nodded politely to the assistant and inquired after her health. Another buzz in the same pattern, another security guard down.

She slipped her arm into the crook of her mark’s, complimenting his cream-colored jacket and his haircut, and lead him toward the elevator. The assistant followed behind, silently and likely more than a little jealous. Just as they stepped in, her watch gave a long shake, from one end to the other. He was also in the elevator in his building.

Sévérine paid attention to her mark, putting off a mysterious persona while making him feel like he was the center of her world. The most interesting man she’d ever met. Meanwhile, internally, she pictured Patrice in his suit with his briefcase, the black one she’d helped him pick out, and wondered if he’d already taken the silencer off his handgun.

Would he put it in the left pocket or the right?

She gave a low chuckle at the terrible Van Gogh joke her mark made and slid one of her nails up his soft bicep. He shivered, and so did her watch. Patrice was getting close to his floor. The assistant frowned, and Sévérine reached out to delicately examine her necklace with two nails. Cheap, poorly made, but she complimented it as if it were Cartier.

Was Silva himself watching this whole endeavor? Was he sitting on the island in one of his expensive suits, or maybe just in his loungewear, looking at the spread of cameras before him? Was he caressing her through the programming, his fingers beating a staccato against her wrist through the watch?

If he expected the man to come tonight, then he likely was. She felt both terrified and remarkably reassured. If Silva got involved in something like this, such a small plot, then surely everything would go as planned. Surely he would want Patrice to survive, she worked so smoothly with him that it would be an absolute waste to have to train her with someone else.

The very outside of her watch gave a tiny blip. He was cutting the glass.

She reached her floor with her mark and he was practically eating out of the palm of her hand already. The assistant smiled tightly at her long-suffering look. Her hired help was already setting up the easel, setting up the chair, and Sévérine had marked on the floor precisely where she wanted them to go. Another minute for her to unlock the door, and he reached over her to hold it open.

She shot him a sultry smile over her shoulder, but internally she was crawling. His chest was pressed up against her back, his breath on the back of her neck, and she visualized Patrice shooting him right through the windpipe. He pressed closer to her, his eyes going half-mast, and Sévérine stepped ahead of him quickly. The assistant’s face was as smooth as a mirror, but Sévérine could feel the annoyance seeping off of her.

One wall of her extensive apartments was nothing but glass, facing the same side of a new office building that Patrice was now diligently cutting a hole out of. She handed her mark and his assistant off to her hostess, begging a minute to make sure the art was set up properly for him to view it. Patrice would likely be done shortly.

While her hostess batted her big blue eyes at him, offering to take both of their coats but surely they would decline, this would only take a moment, Sévérine made sure the champagne was on ice and the room was spotless. Her security detail stood in the corners, and she tried not to think about the fact they were there more to keep her from running than to keep her from harm.

Four fast blips. He was done putting his rifle together.

At her signal, the hostess showed them in. She handed each of them a crystal flute of champagne and welcomed them to her home. Neither one of them commented on the spectacular light show on the opposite building, despite Sévérine thinking it was likely one of the prettiest things she’d seen in a long while. It was good, it meant they weren’t looking.

One strong buzz. He was in position.

She motioned to the assistant to stay and showed the man into the ‘gallery’, as she was calling it. The chair was set up perfectly, the canvas draped dramatically with a sheet, and she walked behind him, staring out at the window as she did. She could just barely make out the tell-tale signs that Patrice was there, if she hadn’t known exactly what she was looking for she would have missed it. And even still, she was half-guessing, the lights made it impossible to see.

She positioned herself behind her tasteful leather armchair and swept her hair over her shoulder, between her face and the window. She’d learned from experience that her thick tresses would catch any glass splinters before they could dig into her skin. She would brush them out or have Patrice comb through tonight.

One of her security detail lifted the sheet.

It was, truly, a painting that Sévérine didn’t like. She’d selected it because she thought the spatter of blood would improve it.

Her guard held the sheet, the man leaned forward to inspect the artwork, and there was a quiet sound before the glass exploded inward and the mark’s skull with it.

Before the window had fully caved in, two of her detail were cleaning up the mess. She started to pick her way through the glass, careful not to trip, listening as the rest of her detail took care of the assistant and her hired help. Sévérine was coldly uncaring of them, Silva had found them somehow and he never left innocent casualties. Whatever they’d done, their lives ended quickly and fairly cleanly, a better death than most.

Sévérine was preoccupied with the way the apartments were being cleaned out, so the sound of shattering glass took her by surprise. Her watch hadn’t blipped to let her know he was cleaning up, which meant something had gone wrong. There was no room for error, and if Silva was the one sitting behind the controls, there was no possibility that he had just forgotten to tell her.

She watched, deathly aware of how many cameras, how many _angles_ Silva could probably see her face from right now. Her expression schooled into blankness, but inside she was panicking. The bright blue jellyfish reflecting across the front of the glass illuminated two figures fighting for a millisecond, then the room was wreathed in shadow and all she could do was watch the darkness to get another glimpse.

The angle was terrible, the glare was terrible, and suddenly there was no movement. They were both gone. On the floor, perhaps, grappling? That would give Patrice an advantage, surely. Then, suddenly-

No.

_No._

It was Patrice, hanging out the window, and she fisted her hands at her side. Her nails dug into her palms so hard she drew blood, but she didn’t care. Her watch didn’t buzz, didn’t make a sound. Had he known? Had Silva known this man was _here_? Was he even going to warn her? Warn _them_?

“Get up,” she whispered, letting the wind snatch her breath from her lungs as Patrice dangled out of the window. “Please, please,” she felt tears and pushed them back, “Please don’t go. Don’t leave me. Get _up._ ”

He looked over at her for a second, less than a second, as the man yelled down at him, but the man let go, or Patrice slipped, and then-

She didn’t follow him as he flew down toward the street. It would be fatal, and she didn’t want her last memory of him to be his body wheeling through open air as he screamed.

Instead, she let the wind blow her hair over her face and stared at the man who’d killed her lover. _Her_ lover. The one she _chose_. She relaxed her hands and tossed her hair back, letting him get a good look at her.

‘You’ll see me again,’ she thought viciously, glaring across space between them. ‘You’ll see me again and wish you’d died here instead.’

The light flickered to dark, and when it illuminated again he was gone.


	4. I know you can carry on

When she got to her new hotel, in a different province entirely, Silva was waiting for her, sitting on the edge of her single bed. “I know I said you wouldn’t see me until the island, but I thought this was a conversation we needed to have in person.”

He wasn’t grinning, like she expected, if anything he looked quite somber. She felt her lips curl back from her teeth and she snarled at him. _“You.”_

He tilted his head up.

“You _knew_.” She threw down her purse and kicked her high heels off viciously. She stormed up and before she could think better of it, she slapped him full across the face. His head moved only a little, but her hand hurt like hell. It was like his face was made out of _metal._

He ran his tongue over his teeth and looked at the ceiling before adjusting his jaw and letting those dark eyes land on her.

“He was my _partner_ ,” she let out a ragged breath that would _not_ become tears, and he watched her still. “He was my partner and you just… you…”

“If Patrice could have thrown dear James out the window instead, he would have lived.” Silva’s accent was thicker than she’d ever heard it, and who was _James_? “As it stands, Patrice lost. He could have won, but he didn’t. He lost, and now he’s paid the price.” Silva stepped closer to her, the tips of his shoes brushing her stockinged feet.

She looked down, unwilling to meet his gaze, and blinked rapidly while dabbing her nose with her fingertips. He was right, and she knew it. There was always a risk, on every mission, but they’d always pulled through before, her and Patrice. A team.

“How many times have we slept together?” The question was so unexpected that she froze.

“We’ve never _slept_ together,” she responded warily, hazarding a glance up to him. His face was carefully speculative. “If you’re asking how many times we’ve _fucked…”_

“Ah yes, I was trying not to be crude. Very well, then, Sévérine, how many times have we _fucked?_ ” He held the vowels of the word in his mouth in a way that made her shiver, her body already turning to liquid despite her grief.

“Probably… between seventy and one hundred.” She’d tallied up the years and average visits per month quite quickly, always aware of when was too long and when was not long enough. There was an average in there, and it was the work of quick multiplication to get a fair estimate.

He raised both eyebrows and nodded slowly, looking around the room. “Something like that, yes. And in all that time, never have I told you about _my_ partner, have I?”

 _He was part of MI6_ , Patrice’s voice floated over her. _What they did, or what happened between him and them… it left him… like he is now._

He was expecting an answer, and she hadn’t given one. “No,” she said belatedly, “No, you never mentioned a partner. You never talk much, about before. It’s always what will come, with you.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled up and he reached out to gently cup her jaw. “Let me tell you a story, Sévérine.”

Then, he removed half his face.

She didn’t scream, not with his fingers digging into her jaw. He could snap her neck in a heartbeat. She looked at the sagging of his face, the ruin of his jaw, the way his eye drooped at the bottom. He held the appliance, the prosthetic, whatever it was, delicately with one hand. It was complicated looking, with a row of neat false teeth on the top and bottom, and a latch that must have hooked onto something wired into what was left of his jaw. Sévérine wasn’t a medical expert, but the fact that the device was larger than her hand implied a level of damage that made her skin crawl.

“What-” Her voice was weak to her own ears.

“This,” his voice was slurred and thick, “is what happens when you put too much trust in one person. Betrayal, abandonment.” His teeth were few, and what remained was sharp and blackened. She expected his breath to suddenly be rancid, looking at the raw redness of his gums, but it smelled like… he’d had coffee recently. He looked so much more horrifying, but he was still the same man.

She swallowed and looked at him with big eyes. He’d always been this way, she realized, from the beginning. Just because she’d never seen his true face until now didn’t mean it hadn’t been there, lurking beneath his skin, and some of her fear diminished.

“You should be so lucky that Patrice died before you two were in such a position.” He continued, oblivious to her inner understanding, and he sighed. His hand moved, to put the piece back in his mouth, but she reached out to stop him.

His hand tightened on her jaw, just for a moment, before relaxing into a caress. She ignored the casual dig at Patrice, determined to find a distraction in all of this.

“What does it do? How does it work?” She wouldn’t ask about how he got the wounds, never, that wasn’t her business, but the device itself looked very advanced. It was a testament to its manufacture that she’d never noticed it was there, and her tongue had been in that mouth many a time. In a way, it looked quite sleek.

His eyes roved over her expression, as if judging the foundation of such a question, before he took her innocent curiosity for what it was.

He simplified his explanation, “These are the teeth, with prosthetic bone, and it slides over my jaw and under my tongue just so, to help me talk.” The words came difficultly to him, but Sévérine paid close attention. “This part, up at the top, inflates to correct the shape of my cheek and provide support to my eye. It’s made of a softer material, to be responsive and feel more like the real thing when touched.” His thumb caressed her face almost unthinkingly, and she nodded. “It connects to more parts, further down, to correct my speech and my breathing. There was a lot of damage that came from that particular betrayal.”

She watched without speaking as he slid the piece back into his mouth and, true to his word, it fit seamlessly back into place. His jaw inflated, the shape of his eye corrected, and when he smiled at her, it was with two perfect rows of white teeth.

She hesitantly reached up to touch both cheeks and found them to be the same sort of fleshy springiness that she remembered. It was only memory that told her which side was more damaged. He tolerated her exploration with infinite patience.

Just to make sure, and because she wanted to keep feeling anything but the grief that was threatening to drown her, Sévérine pushed herself up on her tiptoes and kissed him.

He returned it slowly and allowed her to run her tongue over his false teeth, finding the silicone edge that sat against the roof of his mouth, a near-invisible seam. He put one hand on the small of her back and held her steady as she slipped one arm around his neck. They kissed languidly in the neon glow of the signs outside before he slowly walked her in the direction of the hotel bed.

She let him, and for the first time, their coupling wasn’t violent, and Sévérine put her hands in his golden hair as he loomed over her. It was just as soft as it looked. His breathing hitched a few times but he didn’t snarl, and she was ready when he reached between them. There wasn’t any pain, their movement so gentle Sévérine was mostly convinced she was dreaming. But if she was dreaming, he would have been Patrice, and she buried her face in his neck at the thought.

For a time, they were simply two people grieving a loss as they lost themselves in each other.

* * *

“You won’t have a partner for the rest of the plot,” he tossed over his shoulder as he adjusted the edges of his pants over his oxblood leather shoes.

“Did you ever expect Patrice to win?” She’d gotten dressed as well, in sleeping attire, a modest muslin gown. Floaty, romantic, and she knew that when lit from behind, it would be completely sheer. She’d had plans for this gown, but now they only involved sleeping.

He stood and smiled at her patronizingly. She frowned at his silence and reached for her bedside. Patrice wasn’t there to complain about her smoking, so…

He kept talking as if he hadn’t heard her. “You’ll need to be convincingly, seductively afraid. He won’t suspect you of being as vicious as you are, he’ll expect you to be weak. Needing to be protected. He’ll annoy you, and I want you to lean into it. You’re a good actor, especially for a stupid man.”

Silva pulled a small tablet out of his jacket pocket, larger than a phone but smaller than a computer, and hummed as he swiped through it. She felt dismissed and blew smoke in his direction.

He didn’t bother to wave it away, but he did glance up at her in annoyance. Their tender moment was an anomaly that had already passed, and she felt their old dynamic shift back into place.

“No,” he said, and she tilted her head. He raised one eyebrow and clarified, “I never expected Patrice to win. Even with dear James as down and out as he is,” he flashed his screen and she saw a column of text next to a somber picture of the craggy man that must have been James, “He’s still a better fighter than just about anyone on my staff. That’s why none of them will fight him, and _you_ will bring him to me by gentler means.”

He swiped the device and she saw a video streaming site, one that she occasionally browsed for makeup tips and music, and as she watched, faces started to stream by. He looked triumphant, but she was confused. “What is this?”

“My old partner set off a trap. This is the result of Patrice’s last difficult mission, the hard drive. His life was not in vain, his work continues to have meaning.”

This was significant, somehow, she knew it, but she didn’t want to ask questions and Silva didn’t want to answer. He flipped his tablet back to face him and turned it off. He slipped it back into his pocket and his hands in his pants pocket afterward. He sighed and tilted his head to look at her affectionately.

“You’ll have your guards, but I will be returning to Hashima after this. It truly is farewell.”

She regarded him in silence, cigarette between two long nails, and waved her free hand insolently.

He turned to go, but as his hand was on the door handle, he tossed over his shoulder, “Oh, and if he finds out your deception, he’ll kill you. He’s a violent man, Sévérine, don’t underestimate him.”

Before she could reply, he was gone.

She had two days to prepare before she was expected in Macau.


	5. got dirt, got air, got water

The casino was a garish, beautiful thing.

Two parts traditional Chinese architecture to one part Orientalism allure for foreign gamblers. The lanterns on the water were purely aesthetic, but Sévérine lit her own for Patrice and had a little ceremony all by herself. There would be no funeral, there never was, and his body would be unrecoverable anyway.

She walked the grounds during the day with the forced cooperation of the management. Silva may have purchased it, she wasn’t sure, but she was allowed to go wherever she pleased. There were disapproving looks behind her back, a lot of muttering, especially from any elders on staff.

Many of the more traditional individuals disapproved of mixed heritage, and Sévérine knew her Chinese tells sat heavy on her face. A father she never knew, but he’d left his thumbprint on her like a disease. She leaned heavily on a half-remembered French accent and held her head high.

The interior was beautifully carved, heavily polished, with meaningless ‘lucky’ statues in gold and jade in every corner. There was a full set of on-site staff for the next few days, courtesy of Silva, but Sévérine didn’t stay in the servant’s quarters. She had her own room, small and simple but comfortable and private. There was a shower stall but no tub, and she’d had to hang her long dresses on the back of the door for lack of an armoire, but the bed was soft and the curtains blocked out the sunlight.

Visitors came by a cute little boat with lanterns on it, adding the mystic appeal. Sévérine had enjoyed the ride despite herself, especially since her entire security detail couldn’t fit. There were some golden carp in the water, and the casino was cultivating lilies that would blossom in the spring.

The large dragon head, lit from the inside with strings of warm lights, at the water entrance made her raise her eyebrow. An impressive work of art, and she couldn’t help the way her spine shivered as she passed between the silk jaws. She almost felt like she’d been swallowed whole, and this place would be her grave.

There were bright fireworks overhead, gold and white, and she admired the extravagant shapes to distract her from the coldness settling into her stomach. The chill had turned into a heavy, constant feeling once she’d passed through the doors.

After spending a few days at the casino, her favorite thing to do was watch the komodo dragons at feeding time. They weren’t picky about their meals, but the sheer ferocity of their habits and novelty of such a rare beast gave her pause. There were four staff members dedicated to the dragons and their pit, and Sévérine wondered idly if any of them would get caught in the back by a dragon one day. She liked to take her morning tea from the teak bridge that stretched across it as hunks of meat and bone were thrown down from the main floor, employees muttering about having to clean up dragon shit before guests started to arrive.

After the dragons were satedly napping, she would go walk the grounds, inside and out, to scout all entrances and exits. Half her detail was with her during the day, in shifts, and all four surrounded her in the evening.

She’d packed a week’s worth of slinky, revealing dresses in a rainbow of colors, but cast them all aside to wear the same couture black. She was in mourning, after all.

Sévérine didn’t gamble, so her nights were spent looking alluring on a balcony or staircase, often with a drink in hand, more often a cigarette. She would blow on dice and entertain wealthy, continental men and women, most of them looking down her neckline and trying nibble on her neck itself. She started to wear sweeping chandelier earrings to dissuade that behavior.

Sometimes, she pictured herself casting off her dress in the bathroom and donning an extra waitress uniform, tucking her hair under one of their hideous bowl-cut wigs and sauntering right out the door with a tray on one hand.

But Silva would know, and he would catch her, and he was the same breed of vicious that he’d told her James was.

So for four nights, she waited for someone to come in with a very special poker chip and get a suitcase full of money. 

She kept her eyes on the decorative wooden lattice of the cage, watching the cashiers with their cute little white-blonde bobs as they exchanged rolls of cash for shiny stacks of multicolor chips. One night, through the smoke, Sévérine saw him. The man from the harddrive heist, the man from the photo, and the man who threw the man Sévérine loved out a window.

He was in a formal suit that fit him well, and  _ his _ partner was with him. A lovely, russet-skinned woman in a stunning silver dress that walked around the komodo pit exactly the opposite of him, and their strides matched. They crossed each other conveniently, and Sévérine turned her attention back to the man named  _ James. _

He set a single chip on the counter, the cashier took it and slipped into the back, and he looked around but not behind him. His foot moved, just a little, and Sévérine leaned casually against the railing and looked away just as he turned around.

She nodded her head slightly behind her as she took another drag of her cigarette, feeling bright blue eyes on her exposed back. Her security detail, the chubby one, touched his earpiece so conspicuously. He was staring  _ right _ over her shoulder and Sévérine fought to cover her incredulity. Had Silva hired these men to bungle the job entirely? They were so indiscreet they may as well have been wearing suits printed with Silva’s face.

‘At least,’ she thought dourly, ‘I’ll have his attention for sure.’

As the personnel looked away and at her, she rolled her shoulders and turned around dramatically. He was staring right at her face, but his eyes did a very quick run down her body. The dress was designed to draw the eye toward her cleavage and lower, so his distraction didn’t surprise her. She didn’t bother to disguise the anger she was feeling.

She  _ hated _ this man. He’d taken the one consistently good thing in her life and  _ ruined _ it.

She exhaled smoke in a hiss and forced a smile at him.

He looked away but his eyes stayed with her even as his head turned. He didn’t trust her. Good.

The casino manager and hired muscle came down with the briefcase that should have been in Patrice’s hands. Her hands. She couldn’t bear to watch him accept it, so she turned and started to float down the stairs. The inelegant tromping of her guards followed her.

The exchange between them was fast, and he moved quicker than she anticipated. Her plan to intercept him between two of the gaming tables failed as he strode past a good thirty seconds before she’d planned for him to. She slid out into the main walkway and looked after him. He didn’t leave, as she’d feared, and had instead stopped at the nearest table, casually tossing a few chips with one hand.

She sauntered up next to him and purred, “Now you can afford to buy me a drink.” She didn’t look at the briefcase by his side.

They sized each other up for a silent heartbeat, and in a much deeper voice than she’d expected, he purred back, “Maybe I’ll even stretch it to two.”

A much smoother response than most, and it made her smile despite herself.

“I’m guessing I’ve got four million euros in here,” his hand shook the case subtly and her face fell back into something guarded. It was closer to four and a half, but who was counting? If the money had been meant for him, he would have known how much was there.

“Not bad,” her tone was unintentionally dismissive, and she turned from him to compose herself. “I like this game.”

“Why don’t we play another?”

Boring. Predictable.

“I don’t gamble,” she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm and looked sideways, finding her detail in the crowd. They were there, and she was struck with inspiration. Looking back over, she crossed behind his back, seeming to hide herself on his other side, and made her voice quake  _ just _ a little, “I’m not very lucky.”

“A little like our friend in Shanghai.”

Oh  _ no. _

Her face contorted as he looked away from her, fury and rage and she wanted to rake her  _ claws _ down his face. He glanced back her way, and she instantly slid a mask of seduction on her features. A smile on her dark lips and she turned back to the table, “I’ve been waiting to see who would redeem the chip.”

She knew it was going to be him, but she’d still been waiting.

“You made such a bold entrance into our little drama,” she arched her neck up and away, stretching herself out and fanning her hand through the air.

“Did I over-complicate the plot?” He reached down and put his chips on a number.

“Who doesn’t appreciate the occasional twist,” she quipped, “Mr…?” She knew his name was  _ James _ , had listened to the almost obscene way Silva held the name in his mouth, but what was the surname?

“Bond.” He looked her, full in the face, “James Bond.” He said it like a shield, like something he was so confident was going to save him.

She allowed a polite pause before she smiled and without looking away, “Sévérine.” She shifted closer and couldn’t stop the spike of derision at his name, “So Mr.  _ Bond _ , shall we discuss your next performance over that drink?”

“I’d like that,” he shot back immediately, then sighed and looked behind him. “Will your  _ friends _ be joining us?”

All three guards were lined up like idiots. No finesse, just an attempt to look intimidating. She wondered what sort of effect Silva was hoping to have if he’d ordered them to be as conspicuous and visible as possible. They were all glaring, but mostly at her, and their body language…

Sévérine froze in sudden clarity. They were  _ props. _ Silva was backing up the idea that she should be  _ afraid. _ They were either actually just that bad at being security and Silva had hired them specifically for that reason, or they were good actors.

Sending a look over his shoulder, she drawled, “That, I’m afraid, is inevitable.”

Well, at least they were good for breaking the ice.

* * *

She lead him toward the bar, feeling his eyes on her back and lower as she switched her hips in front of him.

He was muttering something under his breath, probably into a wire, since the dusky woman in silver was sitting four tables away. Sévérine very carefully didn’t look her direction, just as the other woman carefully looked away. There was a louder mutter and then a clink as something hit the woman’s flute.

Sévérine hid her smile. That was his wire. Now, she could ask slightly more pointed questions.

Once seated, and she’d ordered her champagne and lit another cigarette, he lowly asked for a martini, but shaken instead of stirred.

Together, they watched the confident, precise movements of the bartender, a little woman nearly identical to the woman in the cage. Same dress, same hair, same makeup. His gaze was very nearly worshipful, and he whispered, “Perfect,” when the woman poured his drink.

She pitched her voice low, “Would you mind if I asked you a business question?”

He looked slightly puzzled by the unusual question, and a half-smile flit over his rustic features, “Depends on the question.”

Her smile was sharp, and her leg was moving restlessly. “It has to do with  _ death _ ,” she kept her smile just slightly on the wrong side of vicious.

She had to know. She wanted to hear him  _ say _ it.

“A subject in which you are well-versed.” He held his glass by the bowl instead of the stem, and her nose wrinkled lightly. His drink would warm rapidly if he held it that way, that was the entire purpose of the stem. It struck her as borderline rude, for whatever reason. His question raised little flags in the back of her mind, and she blinked at him rapidly. Her hand felt like it was shaking ever so slightly. Everything about this man was repelling her.

“And how would you know that?” For the first time, she wondered if this entire farce was going to be blown because he really  _ did _ have her intel. Silva had everything about her under tight lock and key, but one little  _ slip _ … had he betrayed her?

“Only a certain kind of woman wears a backless dress with a Beretta 70 strapped to her thigh.” He was leering at her now, and she started.

Wearing the thigh holster was such second nature by now, she’d just assumed she was as good as concealing it as ever. She’d nearly forgotten it was there, but for this man to have noticed… he was good. Better than she’d thought.

“One can never be too careful,” she started warily, “when handsome men in tuxedos carry Walthers.” Letting him know that, yes, she’d noticed his weaponry as well. Also, Silva’s dossier had listed it as a standard piece of equipment.

Her smile cut across her face like a knife when he didn’t respond, and she got right to the heart of the matter. “I am correct in assuming you killed Patrice?” Her eyes bore into him, and she eagerly awaited his answer.

He leaned back slightly and said, as if unsure of why she should even be asking, “Yes.” He’d finished his drink when she’d been talking, and he nervously set the empty glass on the counter and turned from her.

She didn’t move her eyes from his face. “Might I ask why?” She kept the hatred out of her voice by the grace of her own restraint and poured bored curiosity into her tone instead.

His answer was both what she expected and what she feared. “I want to meet your employer.”

He folded his hands neatly, and she felt her arm shake. ‘I want you to meet him, I want him to  _ destroy _ you,’ she thought, ‘I want him to hold you down while I flay the flesh from your  _ bones. _ ’ But she was supposed to be frightened, weak, alluring, so she took a nervous drag of her cigarette and allowed the smoke to creep out of her smile. Her eyes blinked faster, and she twitched her cheek. Her face smoothed out into a blank mask and she looked down and away. So frightened. So  _ submissive. _

“Be careful what you wish for.”

He bought it entirely. “You're scared.”

She nearly scoffed and instead turned it into a mildly terrified sigh. “Thank you for the drink,” she snubbed out her cigarette, “Mr. Bond.” She slid her clutch neatly from the counter onto her lap, and dragged her other arm behind it.

She expected him to stop her, and he did. His hand, tight on her wrist, and his face serious.

‘Always the hero,’ she thought, but made her eyes wider.

She sat down again, on the edge of the stool, and moved her head in an elegant circle, looking down at how his hand clasped her wrist and then in the direction of her inevitable guardians. She flicked her dark gaze up to him, and then away.

He leaned in, “You put on a good show,” and she froze.  _ Shit. _ Had he seen through her?

Silva’s voice filled her ears,  _ ‘Oh, and if he finds out your deception, he’ll kill you. He’s a violent man, Sévérine, don’t underestimate him.’ _

“But ever since we sat down, you haven’t stopped looking at your bodyguards. Now, three of them is a bit excessive,” she nearly snorted. She was, to the best of her knowledge, the favored consort of one of the most powerful men in the world. Three was an  _ insult. _ She knew what Silva could and  _ had _ done, and she was sure she had more security around the casino who were actually invested in keeping her alive and weren’t just for show.

But she let some fear creep through her expression, because he wanted her to be afraid. He was still talking, “They’re controlling you. They’re not protecting you.” He was so confident in his words that she almost believed them.

He surprised her again by flipping her wrist over. There, just above the jeweled hem of her sleeve, was the tiny little tattoo that she’d nearly forgotten about and was frankly shocked that he’d even noticed.

“The tattoo on your wrist is Macau sex trade.”

‘Been to many brothels in Macau, Mr. Bond?’ was on the tip of her tongue, but he wasn’t finished talking, “You belonged to one of the houses. What were you, 12? 13?” He didn’t flinch from the correct guess he’d had, she’d been 12 when she’d been sold to one of the pleasure houses, and that made her feel entirely too sure that he had information she didn’t want him to have.

It made her smile brittle, and she calculated how quickly she could pull her gun on him. She slid her clutch and her hand slightly lower on her thigh.

“I’m guessing he was your way out.”

_ Damn. _ He must have known something. He  _ must _ have, she’d done an admiral job of being frightened, but this was hitting far too close to home. Unbidden, the memory of Silva wrapping her in his coat like a knight with a cloak flew to the front of her mind, and she felt her mask drop completely. How did he  _ know? _

“Perhaps you thought you were in love.” That was a miss, and she relaxed slightly. He really was guessing, she felt  _ something _ for Silva, a strange lust and loyalty, but it was never love. It might have been love for the girl that existed in his life before her, but she’d shot that girl in the forehead and swore it would never, ever be her.

Then he shook his head and whispered, “But that was a long, long time ago.”

Vulnerable. Right. A snare to lure him in close. A princess in the claws of a great beast, just begging to be rescued. She lowered her voice and roughened it, “You know nothing about it.” And really, he didn’t.

“I know when a woman is afraid and pretending not to be.” He tilted his head.

She wanted to laugh at how stupid it was, but channeled the energy into looking nervous. It was the opposite. She wasn’t afraid, but she was pretending to be a frightened doe, surrounded by wolves. She slowly blinked at him and started breathing faster.

“How much do you know about fear?”

_ I want you to tremble before me before this is done. _

His eyes turned soft, “All there is.”

_ You think that now, _ she thought callously.

“Not like this,” she hissed, widening her eyes and trying to generate real fear. Tried to conjure up the most violent, unexpected couplings, the ones that were borderline rape, and the fear she’d felt, but… it was just sex. Violent sex, yes, but she’d had that and more in the brothel.

Then Patrice’s face sprung into her mind, a glance at her in desperation, in apology as he dangled against the building before he was dropped. The memory sent a burst of terror and adrenaline into her heart, and it made her shake.

“Not like him.” She looked him deeply in the eyes and knew that he thought she was talking about Silva. She, instead, holding the memory of his genuine lack of care for Patrice, thought of the man who so cruelly killed her lover.

“I can help you,” like he was talking to a lost kitten, stuck in the rain.

_ Bare your throat and don’t move, _ she cast at him sadistically. Her long, long claws were so thirsty.

“I don’t think so,” she practically rolled her eyes at him, but kept her demeanor meek.

“Let me try.”

He very, very obviously did not know who Raoul Silva was. If he had, he wouldn’t have said something so  _ stupid. _

Curious to see exactly how he planned on doing that, she searched his eyes and gave another smile, “How?”

“Bring me to him,” and the image of this man dangling Silva out of a window filled her with a strong combination of fury, hatred and desire. She shook and her breathing staccatoed sharply. She wanted to  _ murder _ this man, Silva wasn’t good, wasn’t kind, but he was  _ hers _ . And how Bond was so blatantly asking her to betray a man like Raoul  _ Silva _ … He either had no idea who he was, or he knew  _ exactly _ who Silva was and was asking her to toss her life away to ferry him straight to his doorstep. She thought of the way he’d looked when he told her Patrice was dead, and leaned much more toward the latter.

He was damned lucky the plan had always been to bring him to Hashima.

“Can you kill him?”

_ Say it. Say it so easily, like you did with Patrice. _

“Yes.”

Another flare of fury, but something provoked her to press harder.

“ _ Will _ you?” Short of forcing him to say outright that he was going to murder Raoul Silva, this was as close as she could get to being absolutely positive of his intentions.

“Someone usually dies.”

_ I hope to God that it’s you. _

She laughed like he’d told a funny joke and bit her tongue between her neat white teeth and looked at him playfully. “Perhaps you can.”

_ And if you do, I’ll be there to put a knife in your back while you fuck me. _

Then she sat back, put two fingers against her temple and gracefully framed her cheekbone with her thumb, she decided to test him. “When I leave here, they’re going to kill you.” They weren’t, explicit orders to  _ everyone _ that this one was to be delivered whole and unharmed, but they were going to put on a convincing show. “If you survive, I’m on the Chimera. North Harbor. Berth seven. We cast off in an hour.”

Hired help had been packing her things and moving them to the boat. There was a very strict set of executable plans once this man had stepped foot onto casino property. She’d sat with him for an hour already, so everything should already be onboard and her supper should be ready by the time she got there.

Along with a chilled bottle of champagne for when he arrived.

And the expectation that she would sleep with him.

She’d deal with that later, she needed to pay attention  _ now.  _ It would do her no good at all if he decided to skip town with the money and settle down somewhere sunny and far away. She had to be so appealingly helpless, so anxious, so  _ ready. _

Chuckling at how  _ easy _ all of this had been, she pulled her hand back and stood up again. “Very nice to have met you, Mr. Bond.” A flirty, contemptuous smile, “Good luck.”

With that, she turned around the stool and sauntered off, all three security detail staying behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
